I find it suprising that Black-List is somehow a racial epithet but White-List isn't. Never mind that neither the original meaning of these terms nor the current meaning, nor any slang meaning I've ever heard of have anything to do with race. Do these people know how to use the dictionary? These are accepted technical terms. Maybe the reason we can't stop the PRC from hacking our computers is we have forgotten how to black-list known security threats???

Damn.

Or can't I say/type damn anymore, either?

 

We're taking this whole implied-versus-intended crap too far.

Surely people cannot be that sensitive, that words like these can't be used anymore...?

 

Flip? What, we can't flip a coin anymore, flip over a new leaf, flip over the next card in the deck, flip out over some lame list of no-no's?

 

Boy? Girl? Guess we can no longer say which sex the new baby is?

 

Cracker? Does that mean we can't eat them for lunch or at break time anymore?

 

Blackmail? Anyone then have a better term for extortive (extortionist?) doings?

 

Mick? What if that's his name (or short for Mickey, or is Mickey too slang to use now, too?) ?

What do we call Crocodile Dundee now?

 

Buck? So much for deer season. Is doe offensive then, too? Guess the next time someone asks me, "Can I borrow a buck", does that mean I can go crying to the EO office because they used an offensive word?

 

So what exactly now do we call an oriental rug?

 

And why again is colonial so offensive? Is it supposed to be referred to now as America's subversive era? Or would we say seditive (from sedition) when we were trying to break away from European rule?

And what about houses with that colonial look to them?

 

Monkey and guinea pig?  Better start rewriting the biology books then, notify all the zoos and pet stores, etc...

 

And so now we have to say, "yeah, my kid crayoned that picture for me" , because "colored" is just too offensive?

 

(note to self: send email complaint to Savage: "Very nice rifles, but your name has been deemed offensive. Please change it to something less suggestive.")

Spic and Span cleaner will have to change its name, too.

(Wiki has an interesting article there: link